With a new baby coming soon, I’ve really been trying to make sure Maggie has her own time with me (and my husband) before his arrival and her own space for when he does come. She will still be going to daycare a few times a week, but on the days she is home with the baby & me, I wanted to make a space that was her own and that was easily accessible for her to access what she needs. She is becoming more and more independent with things, so I wanted to support this.

Maggie, like most toddlers I think, loves arts – colouring, drawing and crafty stuff like play doh. I also try to do crafts with her when she is home in preparation for special holidays or seasons, because she does so much of that at daycare! Having her sit at our big table isn’t ideal – we don’t have a good booster and she can’t quite reach the table top unless she stands on the seat (and my husband is in the process of building our leaning tower still). She went to one of her grandparents homes recently and they had a small table and I could tell how much she loved it – so her great grandfather helped to fund a new little space for her for Christmas! An art corner!

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Details

We have a very small first floor – everything is connected. In preparation for baby, we moved our front bench/toy storage to the other wall and moved Maggie’s play kitchen upstairs. This freed up enough space to create this little corner, perfect for Maggie! You really just need a bit of wall and floor space to do this – so it could be good for a main floor, basement or even within a bedroom!

The table is of course the classic IKEA LÄTT table which comes with the matching 2 chairs in white and pine. This table has been around forever – I am quite sure I had one as a kid or at least my younger siblings did. I loved that it was such a good price (under 40$) and came with the chairs already. IKEA has a selection of different tables – some are plastic with plastic chairs if that’s what you prefer. I opted for this one because 1) it’s easy to wipe clean and 2) it was aesthetically pleasing enough to go in my living room. In a play room – I would have been all for the brighter plastic white, but I really wanted it to flow with my pre-existing space as best as possible.

The rods and buckets are also from IKEA – we grabbed the SUNNERSTA containers and rack. They came as a set at our IKEA – 2 buckets per rack, so we grabbed two sets. You could also go with a metal variation with a rod, like this one which is available on Amazon (is IKEA available on Amazon?!). I originally wanted these but the SUNNERSTA set was on sale and such a good deal, so I opted for that. I like that the metal rods have the ability to use larger containers which would be good to store paper or colouring books in. I also found similar plastic buckets on Amazon here.

Finally the chalkboard was from Michael’s – which actually has a 30% off sale until the near end of January right now and they offer curbside pick-up (so does IKEA via Click & Collect)! We got the board for under 30$ because of the sale – and you can find it here. Obviously lots of places have chalkboards and this size may not be ideal for your space, so you may have to shop around to find something that works.

In terms of other storage for colouring books, play doh, etc – I bought some plastic containers from Canadian Tire and I’m storing that stuff right next to the table under the couch. The size I bought actually fits *perfectly* under my couch so I like it (because it also deters dog hair from floating under there!). Two birds, one stone.

This set up is great for arts, crafts & more – Maggie has actually enjoyed eating there now instead of in her high chair (and she actually eats more too). We can also set up different toys for her to play with on a table instead of the floor – like the Melissa & Doug pizza set, which she was kindly gifted by a friend for her birthday. Multi-use and it’s a great space for your toddler to call their own! Also great for when they want to play “school” in the future – I know that was one of my faves as a kid!!

I’ll be sharing more stuff like this in the future as we change/adapt our space for baby #2! Thanks for reading.